


Learning to Breathe

by Proudmoore



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Reader Insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-22
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-08-27 09:32:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16699918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Proudmoore/pseuds/Proudmoore
Summary: You've had asthma since childhood and have done a good job at keeping it under control.  So good, in fact, that you've neglected to mention it to your boyfriend until you had an attack.





	1. Lies By Omission

Your head is spinning and your ears are ringing.  You can hear muffled voices all around you, feel hands on you, appreciate a hard surface against your back.  Your eyes are watering and it takes you several long moments to realize what all the commotion is about.  As your vision clears, you can see smoke billowing out from a nearby cooling unit, the hissing sound of it malfunctioning filling your ears, sounding like it’s coming from under water.    
  
You remember what happened: you had been working on the cooling unit after a routine maintenance check found it to be running a little bit too hot.  You opened up the containment hood and were examining the works when the unit underwent a critical malfunction, short-circuiting and blowing a valve right underneath where you were leaning.  The force of the blast had sent you reeling back and you’d hit the floor.  You must have knocked yourself unconscious for a few moments because you had been alone in the room when you’d started, but now you’re surrounded by others in red and you begin to recognize Mr. Scott’s voice in your ear.  You realize that he’s sat down on the floor behind you and that you’re leaning against his chest with him supporting you.  You still can’t quite make out what he’s saying – the blast from the containment blow-out has temporarily decommissioned your hearing.

As you become increasingly more orientated, you realize that something’s wrong.  You try to take a deep breath to clear your thoughts and it sticks in your throat – you can’t breathe.  At least, not properly.  Immediately and without thought for the pre-existing condition that you’re fully aware that you have, you begin to panic.  The asthma that has been with you since childhood doesn’t even cross your mind as you desperately try to drag in more air, fighting the constriction in your chest and throat.  
  
“Hold on, lassie,” Mr. Scott’s voice suddenly rings clear in your ears.  “Just hold on.”  
  
There are tears in your eyes at that point and you reach up, clinging to the arm he has around your midsection, holding you upright.  You’re terrified; you can feel your heart pounding in your chest, blood rushing in your ears.  You cough weakly and feel the smoke in the air stinging the inside of your nose, clinging to your throat like burrs and making it increasingly harder to breathe.  
  
At that moment, you notice a blur of movement out of the corner of your eye.  Turning your head in its direction, you realize the door to the compartment has opened and Dr. Leonard McCoy is striding quickly towards you, a tricorder already running in one hand and a med kit in the other.  As he nears you and kneels at your side, you reach out a hand, grasping his wrist and squeezing hard, wordlessly pleading with him to do something.  
  
“I’ve got you darlin’,” he reassures you. “But you’ve got to let me go, at least for now.”  
  
You nod, releasing him from your grasp, your hand trembling as he quickly moves the tricorder over your body, assessing the damage as Mr. Scott explains exactly what transpired.  Keenser stands nearby, watching the scene intently, his expression sympathetic.  Your attention turns to Dr. McCoy again as you feel him touching your jaw line, encouraging you to tip your head to the side.  As you acquiesce, you feel him press a hypospray to your neck and you close your eyes, anticipating the stinging bite of the injection. Thankfully it’s over with quickly and your eyelids flutter open again.  
  
“Just breathe,” the CMO instructs you gently. “You’re okay, I promise; just breathe.”  
  
You try to do as he says, feeling your breathing getting gradually easier after the hypo.  You watch him as he opens his med kit, pulling out a respirator unit. You allow him to place it around your mouth and nose, feeling it seal into place and take your first deep, easy breath as pure oxygen is concentrated from the room air and filtered in through the mask.  
  
As you breathe, you feel Mr. Scott clap you encouragingly on the shoulder from where he’s still bracing you and you smile weakly up at the doctor as he scans you yet again with his tricorder.  His expression is one of concern as he reads the display, muttering something about your oxygen saturation and heart rate under his breath.  Normally you would be concerned, but you are just so happy to be able to breathe easily again that you simply relax back against the chief engineer who is holding you up and let the doctor worry instead.  
  
“Mr. Scott, will you give me a hand bringing her to med bay?”  The doctor asks the other man.  
  
As Mr. Scott nods in the affirmative, you shake your head, reaching up and pawing at the respirator mask on your face. Your efforts are hindered as Dr. McCoy grasps your wrist, pulling your hand away, leaving the mask firmly in place.  
  
“That’s staying on for a while, darlin’,” he gently rebukes you, releasing your wrist as you nod in understanding.   
  
“I don’t want to go to med bay,” you wheeze, your voice sounding garbled and mechanical through the respirator.  
  
The doctor swears under his breath and shakes his head at your insistence but he nods.  Setting his tricorder aside, he zips up his med kit and pushes it out of the way.  Exchanging a few words with Mr. Scott, excusing you from your duties until further notice, he moves in close to you and holds out a hand for you to take. You do so shakily and allow yourself to carefully be stood up.  
  
He’s right there when you falter, wavering on your feet as dizziness clouds your senses, and his hand lands on your hip to steady you.  Before you can assure him that you’re alright, he scoops you up into his arms and you yelp, throwing your arms around his neck.  You allow him to carry you through the room’s sliding door and to the turbolift.  Before you know it, you’re on the dormitory floor and he’s carrying you right to your quarters.  
  
The doors slide open at his command and you let your arms relax from around his neck as he sets you down on your bed. You watch as he reaches for his pocket and curses when he realizes he’s left his trusty tricorder behind.  You move over a bit to make some room for him as he looks down at you again and are happy when he sits down.  He seems so much more approachable when he’s at your level, rather than towering over you, and you see more of the worried boyfriend than the frowning doctor as he relaxes a bit.  
  
“How’re you doing?”  He asks softly.  
  
You smile.  
  
“Better,” you reply, frowning and looking cross-eyed down at the respirator still on your face.  
  
Gesturing to the mask, you raise a querying eyebrow at Leonard, who responds by taking your wrist to check your pulse rate by hand.  You sit patiently through the motions as he does what he does best – takes care of you in the most important way he knows how.  Several seconds pass as he makes the call as to whether or not you’re alright, and you’re relieved when he lets go and reaches for the respirator.  
  
As he powers it down at takes it off, you reach up to rub a hand over where it was sealed into place, feeling the faint outline of it left in your skin.  When you look up at him again he’s staring at you, his expression a mixture of worry and sadness.    
  
“Why didn’t you tell me you had asthma?” He asks.  
  
Now it’s your turn to frown.  
  
“You’re the CMO,” you reply.  “I figured you’d have reviewed my medical records and seen it in there.”  
  
Leonard shakes his head.  
  
“You’re also my girlfriend.”  He says lightly.  “I’ve never had to treat you for anything, you’ve always seen Geoff for your physicals, so I respected your privacy.  I always figured you’d tell me if there was anything important I had to know in there.”  
  
You consider his words for a moment and smile, the smile quickly turning into a chuckle as you come to understand your mutual misconceptions.  Leonard realizes them, too, and his smile makes your heart flutter wildly in your chest like a trapped hummingbird.  You shuffle closer to him and shift so that you’re on your knees, leaning in to kiss him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders to pull him close.  He reciprocates, his hand coming around to splay on your lower back and keep you in place.  The kiss deepens until you’re both breathing hard and before you can do much more, Leonard’s hand lands on your chest, pushing you back a little.  
  
“Slow down, darlin’,” the doctor chides you softly, his beautiful, soulful hazel eyes meeting yours.  “You need to take it easy for a while.”  
  
You groan and roll your eyes with a grin, silencing him with another kiss.  It doesn’t take long for you to prove to him just how wrong he is.


	2. Truth Be Told

“What’s going on over here?”

You barely even hear the question, let alone recognize the voice posing it as belonging to Leonard McCoy, CMO of the USS Enterprise, personal physician to one Captain James T. Kirk, and perhaps most importantly – your fiancé.  He’s out of sight yet, on the other side of the privacy screen that Dr. M’Benga had ordered Nurse Chapel to activate when you’d first been brought into the med bay a short while ago, and just like you don’t recognize that it’s him, he doesn’t realize that it’s you sitting there, fighting tooth and nail to get free of the medical team’s clutches.

Prior to winding up in the med bay fighting to breathe, you’d been feeling unwell for a couple of days – nothing serious, just tired and achy with a bit of a cough – and you’d been surviving on over the counter symptom relief and hot tea with honey.  Your symptoms hadn’t even really been bothersome enough for you to consider asking Leonard to look you over and so you hadn’t.  He hadn’t had much of a chance to notice that you were sick, either, as he was on opposite shifts from you on this rotation and the two of you hadn’t been able to meet up in days.

You’d gone to work this morning feeling a bit feverish and congested, and things had only progressed from there. You’d had to use your emergency inhaler a handful of times to help open up your airways as your cough had deepened and harshened.  You had planned on heading in to med bay at some point to finally have someone check you out, but things had gone from bad to worse before you could put your plan into action.  You had started having a severe asthma attack, one so bad that your inhaler just wasn’t working anymore.  You were unable to speak, and barely able to breathe; you were lucky that Scotty had come around the corner moments later and found you, or you surely would have died right then and there.  Instead, he rushed you up to med bay, not sparing a moment to call ahead, just gathering you in his arms and bolting through the halls without a second thought.

That was how you’d wound up here, seated on a bio bed, flailing and dodging hands and hypos, as Dr. M’Benga and Nurse Chapel attempt to treat you.  The lack of oxygen has tempered your higher reasoning and driven you into a panicked state. You don’t realize that the people around you are trying to help you, even when Leonard steps through the privacy screen and rushes to your side as he realizes it’s you on the bed.

“Y/N!”  He exclaims, turning his gaze to Dr. M’Benga as he reaches out to grasp your upper arms in an attempt to calm your flailing.  “Geoff, what happened?”

“Mr. Scott brought her in,” Dr. M’Benga explains.  “She’s hypoxic and barely moving any air.  I can’t get a hypo into her.”

As he speaks, you’re trying to wriggle your way out of Leonard’s grasp, clasping at your neck, knowing nothing in your frenzied state other than that you don’t want anyone stabbing you with anything like they’re trying to do.  Your panic increases with every passing second as your oxygen levels continue dropping, weakening your fight.

“Y/N,” Leonard says firmly, his grip on your upper arms tightening in an attempt to get through to you.  “You’ve got to calm down, darlin’.  We’re going to help you, but you need to let us.”

His words don’t so much as press at the hypoxic fog that’s settled over you, let alone penetrate it, and you continue to squirm.  It doesn’t take Leonard long to realize that no amount of talk is going to get through to you, and so he makes an executive decision in your best interests.

“I’m going to pin her down,” he explains hastily to the others.  “When I do, you can give her the Tri-Ox.  I want some Dexalin on board, stat, and point five of Rexlin.”

Christine nods in acknowledgement of his orders and moves quickly to assemble the necessary drugs.  Dr. M’Benga already has a hypo with a preload of Tri-Ox in it in hand, and he has it poised at the ready as Leonard gently but firmly wrestles you into submission.

“No,” you rasp desperately, your words coming out in a wheeze.  “NO!”

“It’s okay, Y/N,” Leonard reassures you as he moves around the bio bed so he’s standing on the other side, behind you. “You’re going to be okay.  I’m sorry, sugar, but we’ve got to do this.”

His arms wrap around you, pulling you tight against his chest and pinning your own arms at your sides.  Reaching up, his fingers encircle your wrists and pry your hands away from around your throat, giving Dr. M’Benga just enough space to press a hypo to your neck.  The sting of the injection doesn’t even register but you fight with renewed vigor at the perceived attack, especially once your oxygen levels begin to creep up little by little in the wake of the medication.

The next few minutes pass by in a flash. Your uniform is being exchanged for a patient gown.  A mask is being pressed to your face to supply supplemental oxygen.  More hypos, monitor leads.  All the while you squirm but Leonard’s grip on you holds strong, keeping you from dislodging any lines and wires and from prying the oxygen mask from your face.  The squirming doesn’t last long, however, as the medications begin to take effect; the sedative has you relaxing and on the cusp of dozing off, and the sympathomimetic has opened your airways enough that you’re able to drag in your first proper breaths in over fifteen minutes.  As the oxygen reaches your brain, you begin to calm down as the world comes into sharper focus and you start to realize where you are.

“Are you back with us, sweetheart?” Leonard asks, his grip on you finally easing.  

Your arms are sore where he’s gripped you and you’re extremely confused about what’s happened.  Glancing around you, taking in the unsure expressions on Dr. M’Benga and Christine’s faces, your heart begins to race even more than it already is.  Looking over your shoulder, you find Leonard at last and feel tears prickle at your eyes as a number of very sudden, intense feelings assault you: confusion, fear, and anxiety, among others.

“It’s alright, you’re okay,” Leonard reassures you as he steps around the bio bed to face you.

He takes your hands in his and squeezes them gently, rubbing his thumb over your knuckles.  He looks away from you for just a moment to take in the numbers on the bio bed’s readout and then makes eye contact again.  He slips one hand gently up to your shoulder, pressing softly, encouraging you to lie back.

“What happened?”  You ask hoarsely as you acquiesce and lie down, grateful that he’d thought to raise the head of the bed for you a little to make breathing easier.

“You had an asthma attack,” Leonard explains, glancing pointedly up at the monitor before flicking his gaze back to you. “And with a fever like that, it was probably brought on by an infection of some sort.”

You nod, swallowing thickly and licking your dry, cracked lips.

“I’ve been a little under the weather for a few days,” you admit.  “I thought it was getting better until my inhaler stopped working.  I remember Scotty finding me in the middle of an attack, but it gets fuzzy after that.”

Leonard nods, perching on the edge of the bed at your side and taking your hand in his, giving it a gentle squeeze. You’re half expecting to be admonished for not coming in sooner, but instead his expression is kind, sympathetic.

“Adrenaline impairs your brain’s ability to lay down new memory,” Leonard elaborates.  “Coupled with the lack of oxygen, I’m surprised you remember anything.”

“Lack of oxygen?  It must have been bad,” you murmur.  “Especially if you’re being this nice about it.”

Leonard chuckles softly and inclines his head in a slight nod.

“It was a little touch and go there for a minute,” he admits without saying too much for fear of scaring you.  “But we’ve got it under control.  All you have to do is relax and listen to your doctor’s orders.”

Leonard glances up and over at Dr. M’Benga, who is smiling at you reassuringly as he enters a few notes into your patient chart.  You smile back weakly and shift around a little in an attempt to get more comfortable. As you move around, you bump your wrist against the bed and hiss as pain flares in it.  Glancing down at it, you notice a bit of duskiness around it and you furrow your eyebrows.

“How’d I bang myself up?”  You ask.  “I don’t remember having any sort of accident down in engineering.”

Leonard looks down at the wrist you’re indicating and grimaces slightly as he reaches out to pick it up.  He holds your hand carefully and gently runs his fingertips over the bruises, inspecting them.  He sets your hand back down and does the same to the other side at which time you realize you’ve got them there, too.

“You didn’t get hurt at work,” Leonard explains.  “I’m afraid these are my fault.  You were in bad shape when you came in and we couldn’t get a hypo in anywhere but your neck with your uniform on, and you were fighting it.  I had to hold you down so Dr. M’Benga could give you some medicine to help you breathe.”

“That bad, huh?”  You say wryly.  “I’ve never had an attack like that before.  Is that bad? Does it mean my asthma’s getting worse?”

Leonard shakes his head.

“No, sweetheart,” he assures you.  “It’s not your asthma, it’s whatever’s exacerbating your asthma.  Once we can diagnose and treat it properly, it won’t be a problem anymore.  Like I said, you’ve got nothing to worry about aside from lying here and getting better.”

“Are you going to take care of me?”  You ask, knowing the rules about doctor-patient relationships.

“No,” Leonard replies.  “But you’re in great hands with Dr. M’Benga.  I will be staying close by, though, and waiting on you hand and foot.  If you need anything, all you need to do is ask.”

You glance over at Dr. M’Benga as he moves in again to continue scanning you now that you’re calmed down and shoot him a grateful look before turning back to face Leonard again.

“That sounds even better,” you decide.  “After all, I’m fairly sure the good doctor draws the line at cuddles and kissing his patients better.”

You wink at Dr. M’Benga and earn yourself a good-natured eye roll in return before he moves off to look over the results of your scans.  Meanwhile, Leonard glances up at your vitals on the bio bed’s readout and gets to his feet as he takes the numbers in.  Now that your fever has come down a bit, he moves off to get you another couple of blankets from the warmer.  He returns quickly and drapes them over your lap, helping you get comfortable before settling in beside you again.

He reaches out carefully once he’s seated and picks up one of your wrists.  Bringing it up, he leans down and presses some soft, brushing kisses to each and every bruise that encircles it.  He does the same with your other wrist and settles your arm back down just in time for Christine to join him at your bedside.

“Let’s take care of these bruises,” she says gently.  “It’ll take no time at all.”

You nod and allow her to take your wrists in turn and run the dermal regenerator over them.  You glance up at Leonard as she works, expecting him to be watching her like a hawk.  Instead, he’s looking at you, watching you closely for any traces of hurt.  You reach up with the hand Christine has already finished with, grasping one of his palms to reassure him that you’re alright.

As the rest of the treatment goes on, you find yourself starting to get sleepy.  You’re sure it has to do with the illness that’s got you in its grips, and it probably has a lot to do with the episode you had just a short while ago, too.  Yawning widely, you turn your head to avoid breathing on anyone and possibly spreading the contagion and you let your eyes flutter closed.

“Get some sleep, sugar,” Leonard encourages you softly.  “You’ll need it to fight this bug.  I’ll be right here when you wake up.”

“Okay,” you murmur sleepily, already half way to dreamland.

With Leonard’s presence nearby and the whole of the medical team on standby in case anything happens, you feel safe and well taken care of.  You drift off to sleep moments later, already feeling better than you have in days and looking forward to the sort of TLC Leonard is undoubtedly going to provide as soon as you wake up again.


End file.
